Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Ghost towns, giants and garlic fries, Gay Pride and game shows: a very American week

A dust devil whirled down the road as we approached. Clouds of dust rose from the dirt track and dust caked windows, doors, curtains, tables and chairs alike. A jacket hung forgotten on a nail, a sewing machine stood waiting for a seamstress that would never come and stacks of magazines crumbled in the schoolroom. Amid the sagebrush, rusting machines lay abandoned, gradually succumbing to the fierce winds and extreme temperatures of the high desert.

Into the old West

Once the means of gathering riches, now a monument to a vanished world

No one will ever shrug on a coat and stride down these streets again

This was Bodie, a Californian town known throughout the West for its lawlessness, of which one little girl, on the eve of her family’s departure to the remote valley, wrote in her diary: ‘Goodbye God, I’m going to Bodie.’ In its gold-mining heyday in the late 19th century, when $32 million of gold and $6-7 million of silver was extracted, its 10,000 inhabitants had an astonishing 65 saloons to choose from. The ‘badman of Bodie’, never identified, was a bogey man that law-abiding citizens in other towns would whisper about behind closed doors. Killings were common, providing plenty of work for the passing bell atop the fire station. In 1881, the Rev F. M. Warrington called the town a ‘sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion'. Even John Wayne might have struggled to bring order to this place.

The main street of Bodie, silent now where gunplay once rattled

How many men's heads were broken in here?

The Dechambeau Hotel and Post Office, remnants of respectability

The Swazey Hotel, collapsing under its weight of memories?

Yet less than 100 years after gold was discovered in this desert, high above the salt-encrusted expanse of Mono Lake near the border with Nevada, the town that once bustled with life and death alike lay abandoned and crumbling. Today, only 5% of its buildings remain, the rest lost to a fire in 1932, which was started by a 2½-year-old boy called Bill playing with matches. It now serves as a reminder of the Gold Rush that led to thousands of people crowding into anywhere with a whiff of the shiny stuff. To wander the streets, peer into the church (the oilcloth bearing the Ten Commandments was stolen years ago) and tread the rotting boards of the Miller house is to step into the past. It’s incredible how swiftly the lumbering tourists with their cameras and burger bellies vanish and the ghosts take over. Of course, it is said to be haunted, and a book of letters from worried visitors returning stolen trinkets testifies to the belief in the Bodie curse, that anyone who steals a rock or broken pot will meet with nothing but bad luck. 

The table is laid for a meal in the Miller house, but the food will never be served 

Decades of neglect are manifested in the peeling wallpaper and damp walls

The whole place has been left in a state of ‘arrested decay’, allowed to crumble exactly as it was when the people moved out, right down to the books on the shelves and the ironing board in the laundry. In winter, this is a barren, bitterly cold place, being 8,379 feet above sea level, shrouded in snow and whipped by strong winds. In summer, it bakes under a pitiless sun, grass yellow and dry, wood cracking and paint peeling. Even before you add the lawlessness, this would not have been a comfortable place to live, and it is no surprise that once the gold ran out and fires destroyed many of the buildings, people were little inclined to stay. For those who come to visit now, treading carefully on the broken floors, it offers a haunting glimpse of a lost world.

Given over to dust, the town of Bodie broods on its past

One of the grander houses in town: home of the Hoover family

Me outside the home of the Kirkwoods, who made their fortune
supplying and shoeing the hundreds of horses and mules who 
hauled the hard-won gold from the mine

The old Methodist Church, built in 1882

The glassy expanse of salty Mono Lake, a few miles south of Bodie

A few nights later, I shrugged off the dust of Bodie and entered a very different but equally American world: that of a baseball game at the AT&T Park between the San Francisco Giants and the Cincinnati Reds. Exuberance is the name of the game here – kiss cams, chants and an endless stream of food vendors, cheers and whoops and catcalls, everyone dressed in bright orange and black, floodlights banishing the night. I’d never been to a baseball game before and I loved every minute. Everyone was good-humoured, from the fans to the photographers, even though the Giants fell 3-1. We feasted on hot dogs and garlic fries, which more than justified the many exhortations that had led me to have them. My friend Shannon did her best to teach me the rules, but I confess, beyond thinking it’s easier to understand than cricket, I failed to follow everything perfectly. One thing that was different to cricket, just as American football doesn’t even approach the rigors of rugby, was that all the fielders wear gloves. Admittedly, they pulled off some spectacular and seemingly casual catches, but it seems easier than stopping the harder cricket ball with bare hands!

Sunset over the AT&T Park
A genuinely impressive moment was Adam Duvall’s first major league home run, which he clouted way into the bleachers just over our heads. Cue lots of screaming and leaping to catch it and intense disappointment when it flew far above us! Our disappointment, however, was as nothing to the pain felt by an over-excited chap who catapulted onto the benches beside us, flattening an innocent girl in a desperate attempt to clutch the ball and slamming onto the concrete in a way that could not have been comfortable for certain parts of his anatomy. Even more excitement ensued when they showed the replay and we spotted ourselves on the big screen – my first ever Giants game and I get on TV! If you feel so inclined, you can watch the big moment by clicking here. Shannon and I are at the bottom right, second row from the front…

Shannon and me with a random visitor from Denver, Colorado

Feathers, sequins and rainbow flags replaced orange and black last Sunday, when Market Street was closed for the annual celebration of Gay Pride. It’s a genuinely heart-warming event, when everybody cheers for that simple but life-affirming thing: Love. A gay couple bore a banner saying ‘Just married’, a transvestite belted out YMCA and the mayor, Ed Lee, travelled in style in a gorgeous old Lincoln. Most impressive, to my mind, were the police officers wearing sashes and belts in the rainbow colours, hand in hand with their boyfriends and girlfriends, being cheered by a scantily clad and beaming crowd. I can’t think of many cities where a police force would come out so openly in favour of gay love. The whirl of colour and naked flesh was a little too outrageous for my delicate English sensibilities, however, so I escaped down to a Bart station to take the train to Oakland and a more intimate celebration.

Police sharing the smile!

The Mayor rides in style

No, I don't know why either...

The gay community is certainly thriving here!

Who said men can't wear purple?

Positively modest for Pride-goers!

 Hugely popular among American game-show viewers is The Price is Right, a programme in which contestants chosen from among the audience guess the price of various items, from foosball tables to diamond rings, to compete for the grand prize. Shannon and her extended family and friends went down to a recording in LA earlier this year and, after screen tests and interviews, she was called on stage by presenter Drew Carey. Several rounds later, with a teaspoon of luck, she had won the grand prize! Not only that, but she proved herself to be a natural in front of an audience, both on screen and with a microphone in the Oakland theatre where the episode was screened to 100-odd of Shannon’s friends and family. Watch the whole thing here! The event raised money for her sister’s charity, Hella Heart Oakland, and proved that she would have the world at her feet if she took to showbusiness. Remember the name Shannon Eng!

Shannon warms up the crowd with a quick game...

...before we watch her moment of triumph!

For something more English, don't forget to book your tickets to the Country Life Fair, September 27th-28th at Fulham Palace, London SW6. Use Promo Code OP14 to enter the fabulous prize draw!